Femi Adesina : Nigeria is Not Man City, Please!

Tayo Balogun

I am strongly against those who want us to run away from Nigeria which is our country and form another one. But surprisingly those who want that are frustratingly many. Their take is that our ethnic group, the Yoruba tribe, has been badly treated (this is not true) within the larger Nigerian entity. They insist that the government of General Muhammadu Buhari has been anything but competent, subsequently making life substantially more difficult to cope with. The view they frequently express is that this government has not done anything near enough to guarantee our security. True, things are bad, very much so. But that is no reason to run away.

The poverty currently pillaging our country is not tribal but those who want us to leave Nigeria would draw attention to a ‘glorious’ past when life was Edenic and pure in our part of the country. Of course they won’t tell you of the burning, chaos and anarchy that almost consumed the west some decades past. They pretend to be too young to know that not too long ago it mattered which part of Yorubaland you come from. Not many people will doubt that we are under the present watch being misgoverned, that we probably haven’t had it so bad. But running away when you can stay and fix things is cowardly. How would our great grandchildren feel if we allowed ourselves to be pushed out of Nigeria by cows?

But today my intention is not to discuss the desirability or otherwise of a Yoruba Nation. My worry mainly is that incompetent people are leading the President astray. And our nation is burning. Unrest everywhere, killings by Fulani and non Fulani herders, new vigilante groups barricading our space to ensure security. Insecurity has forced scarcity of food items on. Our government keeps pulling debts on more debts. It is in this bizarre situation that the Presidential spokesman, Femi Adesina, chose to compare the situation we are in to that of Manchester City FC, the current Champion of the English Premier League. Hear him: “Every team, big or small, strong or weak, set its sights on Man City last season, flexed muscles, summoned superhuman skills and strength whenever they were meeting the champions attempting a treble.

“The lesson? When you are high-flying, the centrifugal forces will come against you, and it would only take the grace of God for you to attain.”

Anyone who knows about Man City would be aware that Femi Adesina has not been able to draw the correct analogies . True, like the owners of Man City, our country has near limitless resources most of which are still untapped or undeveloped. But unlike the English Champions who have top-class players on their payroll most of the people in the Buhari team are largely clueless, drab or outrightly ineffective. While quite a few people would pay a lot to see Man City play, the President’s team would hardly see anyone go watch them for free. Like Adesina himself said, the Manchester-based team is a serial winner. The Buhari team has not been able to win anything. All their wars be it on corruption, securing our country or uniting the people have been lost woefully. The English Champions have players who take their jobs seriously those in the Buhari squad are time-makers who merely seek to benefit self.

When Man City wasn’t doing well everyone knew they would bounce back because they have the pedigree and determination to do that. Even now that they have almost completed a brilliant season, the expectation of most football fans is that they would remain brilliant beyond this year.

In our country, the players in the Buhari team look absolutely incapable of moving us out of the mess they have put us.

That is why we have this present situation that is making the country ungovernable and unless our President stops listening to the likes of Femi Adesina who usually chooses to massage his larger than life ego and Abubakar Malami his acolyte who is conceited in his ignorance, we just may become more immersed in the chaos all around us.

And by the way who should we say is the equivalent of Pep Guardiola in President Buhari’s team?l